Philippines Day-Care Owner Surrenders

MANILA, Philippines – A man who took a busload of students and teachers hostage from his day-care center freed them 10 hours later Wednesday after using the standoff to denounce corruption and demand better lives for impoverished children.

Clutching dolls and backpacks, the children began filing off the bus shortly after 7 p.m., as Jun Ducat promised when officials allowed him to air a long, rambling message on a loudspeaker hours earlier.

Ducat, a 56-year-old civil engineer who has staged other attention-grabbing stunts in the past, then put the pin back in a grenade, handed it to a provincial governor and surrendered.